Barcelona
is considered a hub of design in Europe as well as the world, which was evident
in their comfortable urban space as well as the entire ambiance of the city.

Co-working offices

Like
in Estonia, the rising trend in Barcelona is also the appearance of many Lift99-type shared office spaces and their prices seem to be
very reasonable. Another remarkable aspect is the wide variety of choices, in
terms of location, size and, of course, price as well.

We visited a smaller company located in a basement in the old town, where they
fit about two dozen working places, and we also looked into the work of another
company that uses a small part of a sprawling shared office on the seventh
floor. So in no way did it seem that in order to do business internationally
you need your own exclusive office or a big team. Anything can be done and to
the extent that feels comfortable for you. In that sense, what we saw was very
relatable and more similar to, for example, Sviiter and other companies in
Estonia than what we experienced earlier when visiting companies in Berlin.

Offices we visited.

Hey
Studio – Located in a cosy industrial
area, with a very unique, characteristic and strong portfolio. Their main
chosen directions are identity, print and packaging, and they certainly do like
handicrafts. I also found several parallel lines with our work at Sviiter.

Their characteristic feature, which was pointed out by the local locomotives
Veronica and Ricardo, was their heavy use of graphics and avoiding photography
as much as possible. They feel that using photography is a good and simple way
to create visual solutions, but they don’t convey the actual contents of the
matter. While in Estonia using photography is at the top of the choice of
different visuals, then looking at the work of Hey Studio, I can say that using
photos definitely is not the only option.

Hey Studio also has a successfully functioning web shop, through
which they sell the creations of the Hey Studio designers. They said that the
web shop got started by chance, when they uploaded some works to the company’s Instagram feed
and they turned out to be so popular that people started ordering them
separately.

Luki Huber & Manual
Thinking - Luki Huber is a design company, whose
managers created the brand called Manual
Thinking, which now functions successfully
as an independent business, offering different methods for brainstorming, as
well as mapping and carrying out various processes.

In
addition to the Manual Thinking cards, magnets and books, one of their hit
products is the room separator/organiser the Manual Thinking Box,
which helps keep offices in order, while providing enough inspiration during
brainstorming through different tools that can be used in the process.

Achos – A wonderfully
chaotic company that started from a school assignment that two young men were
given and from their plan to prank the world. Despite the teachers and their
peers, the friendship between the two developed into a functioning company.

They
create solutions with a twist, providing their clients with the opportunity to
step out of their everyday routine. Their unending positivity as well as partly
perhaps their charming naïveté have led the two men to a business that really
makes them smile with each project they undertake – just for the experience, it
is definitely worth checking out their “slightly over the top” website.

Two Points –
Another company whose main visual language is geared towards graphics. They are
dedicated to creating a system that helps them achieve the objectives of
projects. The company considers itself to be the creator of visual identity,
but they don’t design logos – they create holistic solutions around the name.
From the standpoint of classic identity creation, it is quite a 180, but when
you look at it more in-depth, you can see that with this approach, the project has
many more options that they can later play with to come up with new solutions. This
method is very well suited for long-term projects, whose visual identity or
name doesn’t have to be tied down to a logo. Instead, what matters are
recurring and renewable elements, a custom made font and a general visual
language.

Mucho – With some of the coolest works in Spain, Mucho
has accomplished a lot over the past few years and now does work around the whole
world. Their latest major clients include, for example, Movistar, PayPal, Dell, and many more.

A year ago in Barcelona, I met Marc, one of Mucho’s heads, when they had just
landed their contract with Movistar. Over this past year, they have heavily
built up their team, and in addition to offices in Barcelona and San Francisco,
they now have offices in Paris and New York as well.

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About the author

Erkki is founder and AD, who has been with Sviiter since its first steps. Erkki is with economy degree but with great passion for art & design. He has been a mentor in Ajujaht, manager of Innovation Year and helped to build Education Innovation Centre in Tallinn University.